


Bigfoot?!

by foxymoley



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dom/sub Undertones, Driving home, Implied sexual relationship between Bigfoot and OFC, M/M, MoL!Cas, Non-Hunter Winchesters (Supernatural), Phone Sex, Shipper!Sam, Supernatural Elements, dodgy motels, ish, smart!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:29:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxymoley/pseuds/foxymoley
Summary: No one believes four year old Dean when he sees a ghost in Sam's nursery so as soon as he and Sam are old enough they travel the country to investigate and film hauntings for proof.After a potential case is solved by a mysterious hunter, the Winchester's meet Cas investigating...Bigfoot?!With the help of local witch (and old friend of Cas', Rowena) they discover that Bigfoot is not what it seems.A case fic with a dash of romance and sex as Dean travels home, keeping long distance contact with Cas along the way.





	Bigfoot?!

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to several people without whom I wouldn't have finished this. 
> 
> Cass for helping me kill my Britishisms,  
> Toby and JJ for constant cheerleading,  
> Mal for your beta-ing and kicking my ass into dealing with the sex scenes (and outright rewriting some of them!)  
> Kay, Kitty, Nads, Jamie and Snarky for running the fest and server,  
> and last, but not least, Crypto for the [beautiful art work](https://cryptomoon.tumblr.com/post/186407375802/my-art-for-foxymoleys-amazing-fic-bigfoot-for).  
> It seems I need a very generous and talented entourage to get my arse in gear! 
> 
> (Extra note: I put a lot of time and energy into formatting this and it was perfect right up until I hit post! I promise I'll fix it when I have the spoons!)

**Lawrence, KS 1985**

A flickering light bulb woke Dean from an otherwise peaceful sleep. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, blinking blearily around the bedroom. He carefully slid out of bed, making sure to avoid leaving his bare ankles vulnerable to the darkness underneath, and padded to his door which stood half open. Stepping into the hallway, the wood flooring creaked under his feet. He stumbled a bit, and took a second to pull up his Mutant Ninja Turtles pajama bottoms. Mom told him they were for later in the year, when it was colder, but he wanted to wear them now so he had snuck into the big closet and dragged them out. He would make sure he got changed before his mom saw him at breakfast.

The lights flickered again. Dean reached up to the door handle of Sammy's nursery, pulling down with his full weight to swing the door open. The room was dark, with only his old teddy bear nightlight casting a spooky glow across the wall. It flickered then got bright, shining in his eyes he looked away to see a circle of cars laid out on the floor. He stepped towards them slowly. Some of them were the really old cars his dad told him had been Grandpa's. They were heavy and smelled funny. He was never, ever, ever supposed to play with them. He looked back at the door worriedly. He didn't want his mom and dad to think he had messed with them—he was still in trouble for eating all the candy he had found in the pantry—so he tiptoed forward to collect them to put them back on the way up high shelf. He reached for the black car that looked like daddy's—but then he froze, hand hovering over it. The car… it had moved. 

He watched with wide eyes as the toy car drove itself across the rug. 

Then another car moved by itself to drive alongside the first. He rubbed his eyes then pinched himself. Twice. Hard. But the cars still gently rolled around the floor. 

He wanted to run from the room, bury himself under his covers and pretend nothing had happened, but Sammy was here. He couldn't just leave him. He steeled himself and reached for the cars again. 

The nightlight flickered and glowed again, this time revealing a little boy, about Dean's age, pushing the cars around. He was pale, with dark eyes and dark hair. At first he ignored Dean, happily pushing and pulling a little plastic tow truck back and forth. 

While he was distracted Dean grabbed the two closest cars, gripping them tightly in his tiny fists. He didn't know what to do with them now he had them, all he knew for sure was the spanking he'd get if his mom and dad found the cars on the floor in the morning. As he backed away, the boy’s head snapped up, startling Dean. The boy threw his head back and screeched, and the remaining cars rose in the air and hovered there, shaking, their wheels rattling. 

Sammy woke up, adding to the noise with a wail of his own. 

Dean launched the cars at the boy’s face but they flew right through him and hit the wall with a clatter. Dean staggered back, but the boy ghost thing had disappeared. The bedroom door flew open, and Dean jumped, turning around to see a large figure looming in the dark hallway. 

"Dad! Th-there w-was a…a-a boy, or, or a-a—" Dean stuttered, frustrated at not being able to find the right words. He squealed when his dad grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet. John Winchester dragged his little boy through the house to his room, throwing him to the bed. 

"What the hell do you think you're playing at, Dean? Waking Sam? <i>Throwing your grandpa's cars<i/>? You know you're not even supposed to breathe heavy on those. What were you thinking?!" John glared down at Dean, chest heaving, clearly furious. Dean still couldn't form the words he desperately needed to explain what happened and, in the face of his father's wrath, he looked down, silent tears falling onto his coveted pajamas. His dad scoffed at him and left, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Dean curled up into a ball against the headboard and, as he would do for the next few nights, eventually cried himself to sleep. 

* * *

"Dean, honey? It’s time to get up…" Mary stroked her eldest son's hair, waking him gently. "Hey, sleepy head." She smiled warmly as he blinked awake. "Dean?"

"Yeah mom?" Dean rubbed his eyes and stretched. 

"Why is Sammy in here?" She asked.

Dean froze. He looked at his mom through his lashes, head bowed. 

"Um, I put away my big boy toys and I made a bed for him on the floor so he wouldn't fall and I even kept the nightlight on even though it's for babies and I'm not a baby, am I mom?" His words ran together and Mary kissed him on the forehead. 

"It's fine sweetheart, he's ok, I trust you darling. I just want you to tell me <i>why</i> you brought him in here." Her voice was soft and patient, as always. Dean couldn't look at her as he finally told her what happened in the nursery a few nights before. She listened until the end, stroking his back and rocking him while he cried. "Alright Dean, you go brush your teeth and wash your face then come down for breakfast. I'll go feed Sammy." She sniffled into the top of his head then scooped up Sammy to take him downstairs. 

* * *

Dean swung his legs back and forth as he waited outside the doctor's office for his mom and dad. He looked around the room, reading aloud the posters that hung on the walls.

"Be kind to your mind." He liked the balloons on that one. They looked like brains. He giggled and moved on to the next. "Your stru-gley..? Hmm, <i>struggle</i> is part of your story." He tilted his head and trapped his tongue between his teeth. He didn't understand that one. What story? No one had ever written a story about him and he didn't know what “struggle” meant. "Don't believe everything you think." Well, that just didn’t make any sense at all! As he pondered that one, the office door swung open. His parents were smiling at the doctor but they looked weird. They looked like they didn't really want to be smiling but they were doing it anyway. That didn't make sense either. He frowned at his mom but she just held her hand out to him, and he took it. She led him to the car and strapped him into his booster seat with a kiss to his forehead. 

"John. John? Say something? Please?" Dean could just hear his mom speaking to his dad over the noisy engine. "We should just be happy that he doesn't have anything wrong with him, that he just got scared, that he just wants to protect Sam. He's not going to hurt anyone." 

Who's scared? Who is she talking about? Dean wondered who was looking after Sam except Dean. Why did they think he needed looking after? Dean was being a great big brother, wasn't he? He would have to do better. 

His dad finally answered his mom with a really big huff. Mom always told Dean he wasn't allowed to huff like that. Dean crossed his arms and stared out the window. 

* * *

Dean held his little brother’s hand as he toddled around the yard. The men that went in and out of the house were strangers so he stayed away from them. He wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. He watched them carry flat empty boxes in to the house and push full boxes out on carts. The truck they had was the biggest truck he had ever seen up close. 

"Look Sammy." Dean pointed to the side of the van, "Residen-tee-al movers. That means we're going to live somewhere else!" Dean was really happy they were moving. He had seen the scary boy a lot more times but always kept Sammy close so he could make sure he was ok. Mom and dad thought that he was lying and didn't like it when he talked about it, so he had started to pretend not to see him anymore. Mom said he had to leave Sammy alone at least for a little while —but he couldn't! Not if that <i>thing</i> was there.

He watched his mom and dad talking to the men while Sammy sat in the dirt, kicking his legs and giggling. The grown ups all laughed together and then the men got in the truck and started the engine with a loud noise. Dean looked back at the house, up to the nursery window, and shuddered. Yeah, he was real happy they were moving, even if it was just across town. 

Once he and his brother were strapped into the car and his mom and dad were done talking to a lady grown-up, they drove away. Away from the scary little boy and the flying cars. Away from getting in trouble for things he didn't do or for looking after Sammy. He looked over at his little brother, who grinned back with all his toothypegs, held his hand, and eventually drifted off to sleep. Dean watched him for a little while before falling asleep himself. 

**Lawrence, KS 2000**

"Son of a bitch!" Dean shook his hand, hissing. He stuck his finger in his mouth to cool the stinging sensation from the soldering iron burn. Across the desk Sam looked up from his laptop, briefly concerned before looking down again. Dean dove in once more with the soldering iron, fearlessly rearranging the circuitry of an old walkman he had in pieces in front of him. Silence fell over the pair of them once again but Dean knew it wouldn’t last long. It never did when Sam was in the room.

"What are you making?" Sam asked less than a minute later, making Dean grin. 

"This"—he prodded the contraption—"is an EMF reader. It will tell us when there are electromagnetic frequencies bouncing around." Dean smiled fondly when he heard Sam tapping furiously, obviously looking it up. His little bro was such a nerd, absorbing information better than people twice his age but never taking anything at face value. Dean thought, not for the first time, that Sam would be much better off studying something worthwhile when he turned eighteen. Like medicine, or law, or <i>anything</i> other than the supernatural. Dean would have encouraged his brother to go after something more, but he was selfish and scared. He didn't want to lose Sam and he didn't want to be alone. Sure his parents were still at home if he needed them, but he couldn't make it through a family dinner without his work as a supernatural vlogger coming up and without John making some dig at Dean's beliefs. Dean knew that John and Mary Winchester thought he was screwing up his life by running after ghosts, and potentially his brother’s too, but he had to know. He had to know if what had happened to him as a child was real. Dean was desperate to find some evidence beyond his own eyes, if only to prove his parents wrong. 

  
  
**Present Day**

Dean watched Sam give himself yet another once over in the motel's mirror. 

"You look great, let’s go." Dean pulled at his brother's suit jacket, ushering him out the door. "Ok, let's try over at county records. Morgue's a bust. First guy's already buried, no autopsy. Plus, he was just there to install the boiler. Poor bastard. Wrong place, wrong time. Second guy…" Dean flicked through the file on his lap, "...cremated. Shit. We'll have to see if we can get in to see the wife. She survived the attack. Priests?" 

Sam snatched the file and riffled through the pages."Not priests. They're Sikh. So, FBI it is. Come on, get going." He slapped the dash, earning a glare and an eye-roll. 

Dean pulled his StealthCam (patent pending) out of his pocket, pinned the tiny LED lit camera to his lapel, and shoved the rest of the device into his inside jacket pocket. He'd tried camcorders packed into cigarette packets, spy pens, spy <i>glasses<i/>, even those little cameras you hooked onto a cats collar to see whatever the hell it was they did all day. None of them had night vision, which was vital to their work, or they had a shit battery life, or they didn't have sound. So, he mixed them all together into one machine then added a few things like temperature activation and EMF sound buffering. Dean was pretty proud of it, showing it off to his parents and anyone who'd listen. Unfortunately, to them it just reinforced the fact that he was wasting his life when he clearly had so much potential as an engineer or something. Dean generally stopped listening before his dad got to that part though. He took a deep breath, ignoring the weird look from Sam for taking a random trip down memory lane, and started the car.

Following Sam's directions they pulled the car up to a pretty suburban house, with roses and shit around the door. Dean double-checked the vic's name before climbing out onto the spotless sidewalk. 

"Ok, Sammy, you give 'em the ol’ puppy dog eyes and I'll snoop around a bit." Dean straightened his jacket as Sam rang the doorbell. They only waited a second before the door swung open by itself. The brothers looked down as one to see a kid, no more than four and of indeterminate gender, holding the door in one hand and a seriously scruffy teddy bear in the other. 

"Momma!" The child toddled off, leaving the door wide open. Dean shrugged at Sam and sauntered over the threshold, not bothering to look back at his brother’s inevitable bitchface. He took the opportunity to examine a gallery wall of old family photos in the entryway. Something jumped out at him immediately. He elbowed Sam and pointed out the stuffed bear, appearing clutched in childrens’’ arms, slowly aging, generation by generation, along the wall. 

"That could be what's keeping an ancestor here,” Dean offered. “The bear."

Sam urgently slapped a hand to Dean's shoulder, turning him around to face the angry-looking woman who had joined them in the hall. 

"What are you doing in my house?" Though she was roughly two feet shorter than either of them, she still managed to be pretty damn formidable.

Dean cleared his throat and stepped forward, hand out. "Mrs. Sidhu? I'm Agent Townshend, this is Agent Daltrey. We're sorry for your loss. We have a few questions about your husband's death." The woman broke eye contact. "I understand this is difficult but we need to find who did this and make sure they don't do it to anyone else." 

"Well, I appreciate it but that won't be necessary. Um, the agent from before? He got it. Her. I mean. Agent Bulsara, he caught the woman who killed my husband. The murderer is dead now." She shifted on her feet. "She tried to run."

Dean shared a glance with his brother. With one look he could tell Sam agreed she was acting pretty damn cagey. 

"Can you tell us exactly what happened?" Sam asked softly. "Even if you don't think we will believe you?"

She let out a long breath and gestured to the sofa. "I moved here with my husband a couple of years ago, when Nav was born. When my father died suddenly late last year—he lived in Montana, in our family home—I was sent a few tea crates full of keepsakes, toys and photos. A couple of instruments, heirlooms, that sort of thing. I picked a few of the nicer photos to put up, Nav spotted that thing and adopted it." She stopped and smiled fondly at the kid petting the ratty old bear. "The night the crates came, Char got up for water or something and didn't come back to bed. I found him in the kitchen, on the floor. The police said he was electrocuted." 

Sam took the woman's hand, she smiled damply at him and continued. 

"The agent came the next day. Said there had been a similar case in Montana which couldn't have been a coincidence. He was interested in the photos too, and the bear. He was...odd. He wanted to burn the bear but Nav just held on so tight. He talked quietly and managed to get a hold of it. He was surprisingly <i>sweet</i> for a government agent. No offense," She added hurriedly. 

"He prodded the seams and the label and stuff before pulling out a chunk of hair from here." She gestured to the bears arm joint. "It was long and curled around his hand. I felt a chill as he ran it through his fingers, the air got cold and I could see our breath." The woman said in a monotone as she stared past them, looking at something that wasn't there anymore but, to her, always would be. She raised a hand to point. "There was a woman. Dark hair, dark eyes. She was there. We both saw her. She just stood there. Just sort of crackling and...and...sparking. The agent lit the hair on fire and threw it in there." She gestured to the fireplace. "Then he threw salt in. The thing burst into flames too and she...screamed. She screamed so loud." 

She sagged against Sam's chest, and he patted her on the back awkwardly as she cried. 

"And you haven't had any problems since? Cold spots, lights flickering? Nothing?" Dean asked, frowning. 

"No, nothing since, since that." Her eyes flicked around the room. "He called yesterday and asked the same thing. The agent." She leaned forward and whispered, "I don't think he was an FBI agent." Dean shared a look with Sam over her head. 

"Is that so? What did this guy look like?" Dean asked gently.

"He was tall, not as tall as you though." She smiled at Sam, who gave her a 'not many people are' type shrug. "He had dark hair, the start of a beard, sort of? And the bluest eyes I have ever seen in real life." 

"Good looking guy then huh?" Dean smirked and Sam shot him a warning look. Right, right, her husband just died. He cleared his throat. "What I mean is that he's easy to spot. Anything else?"

"He wore a trench coat. All the time. Even when he stopped for tea...but don't arrest him!" She suddenly looked mortified. "He saved us, let me know what really happened to Char and was so sweet to Nav. He doesn't deserve to be punished. Please?" 

"Don't worry ma'am. We understand." 

After being seen to the front door the two men shared a shrug and a sigh. 

"Well, that was a bust. Damn hunters." Dean slapped the back of his hand against Sam's arm, jostling him back to the car. "Okay. What's next?" 

Sam shifted in his seat, laptop in front of him. Dean knew he was stalling which meant either witches or a probable wild goose chase. 

"So, get this. There have been some interesting sightings out west. A lot actually, way more than normal." Dean interrupted him with a glare, rolling his hand to tell Sam to get on with it. "Ok, now hear me out...there have been reports of a large, <i>ape like creature</i> wandering around a forest in Washington." Dean looked at him sharply, and grabbed the laptop to see for himself. He huffed, then snorted, then outright laughed at his dorky little brother. 

"Bigfoot?" Dean shook his head and dropped the laptop between them. "Are you seriously suggesting that we travel fifteen hundred miles, over twenty six hours. To find Bigfoot. Come on Sammy, wouldn't a dating app be easier?" 

As expected, Sam threw him a truly stellar bitchface and huffed. He grabbed the laptop and started to tap away. Dean could see he was bringing up video after video via several social media sites. Sam arranged them to play together in a grid and practically threw the computer at his brother. 

"Look at these Dean. All filmed over the last month, all say the same thing. These people see 'Bigfoot' walking through the trees but when they follow, whatever it is had disappeared. As weird as it sounds, I think this might actually be a ghost." Sam did have the good graces to look embarrassed at least.

"Are you suggesting that some poor jackass died on the way to a costume party or something?" Dean didn't have to look at his little brother to know that the puppy dog eyes were turned on him in full force. He couldn't risk a peek... He peeked. There it was, big ole hazel eyes, close to tears. "God fucking damn it, fine." Dean yanked his Baby into gear and headed west. 

**Washington State**

Thanks to Dean's lead foot, they made it to Olympic National Park in twenty-three hours. Sam had driven for approximately four of those while Dean had napped in the back seat. Sam knew they were gonna end up bent out of shape if they kept living out of the trunk of a car, sleeping on upholstered bench seats, and eating at diners and drive-throughs. At least he would appreciate his basic dorm when he got there. 

Sam unfolded himself from the back seat, and hoped Dean found what he was looking for sooner rather than later. 

Sam leaned against the trunk and checked his phone for the time while Dean tried to flirt his way to a motel room. There was some kind of convention happening, probably due to the increased sasquatch activity, and this had been their second motel to strike out at. Sam had a few more google notifications from an auto search he had set up. It yielded good results...sometimes…and saved him _some_ effort. Three out of the four articles were actually relevant this time. The first one was an ad for hair removal, with Bigfoot as the company mascot—if Dean ever saw that, Sam would never hear the end of it. The other three were all Facebook posts, two videos, two photos. He looked up to see Dean leave the reception, shaking his head. Sam sighed and started to search for alternative accommodation. 

Not too long later, after a fairly exhaustive search of the local area for seemingly abandoned dwellings, Sam hiked confidently through the undergrowth in the golden light of very early dawn as Dean wheezed a few feet behind him. He rolled his eyes as his big brother complained for the umpteenth time that he 'hadn't signed up for this' and whined 'are we there yet?' like a giant flannel-clad toddler. Sam finally spied a rooftop through the trees and picked up his pace. The old cabin had seen better days, but it seemed whole enough for a base-camp and had the benefit of being free. He quickly assessed the building's security before discovering the front door was actually unlocked. Dean came up behind him and pushed him out of the way to enter the cabin, clearly eager to get settled. They both unloaded their equipment, taking in the scant square footage of the main area. The place was strangely clean and warm. Maybe it hadn't been abandoned for as long as his research had suggested. Sam's musing halted abruptly when he heard a thump behind one of the doors. He already had out his dad's old shotgun, sawn off and filled with salt rounds, and Dean had grabbed a poker within seconds. Belatedly, Sam noticed a trench coat hanging over the back of the sofa and gestured to it. Sharing a glance, they shuffled toward the offending door and Dean shoved it open, stepping swiftly aside as Sam strode in, gun raised. He soon stopped short and Dean ran into the back of him. 

Sam found himself face to face with a man leaning against the kitchen counter, bowl of cereal in hand and loaded spoon halfway to his mouth. Sam may have been more on alert if the stranger hadn't been standing there just in his boxer shorts.

"Um…?" All three men said intelligently in unison. 

Much to Sam's complete _un_ surprise, Dean recovered the quickest with a flirty, 'Hey there.'

The man dropped his spoon and lowered the bowl behind himself to the counter. He raised his hands upon turning back slowly. Sam realized he was still pointing a loaded gun at the unarmed man in his underpants, and put it down with a sheepish grin. Besides the obvious characteristic of being unclothed, the man had dark hair, dense stubble and the bluest eyes to ever blue. 

"Agent Bulsara?" Sam tried.

The man squinted and tilted his head. Realization dawned and he nodded. 

"Forgot your alias for a second there Freddie?" Dean snorted. He seemed to notice Sam's confusion and explained. "Bulsara was Freddie Mercury's real name. Nice choice, man." 

Dean smirked at the stranger and Sam rolled his eyes. Couldn't his brother keep it in his pants for five goddamn minutes? 

The mostly naked man finally spoke. 

"Thank you. I am...a fan of his." Wow, that was a hell of a voice and, if the way Dean shifted uncomfortably next to him said anything, he thought so too. Gross. Sam cleared his throat, effectively breaking the staring contest going on between Dean and the Faux.B.I agent. 

The man shuffled past them, taking his coffee mug with him. Sam and Dean watched as he entered what was presumably the bedroom, and shut the door behind him. They shared a look and a shrug, moving to the percolator to grab some coffee for themselves, and sat waiting for the guy to reappear. He did so within minutes, dressed in a pair of dark blue slacks and a white button down. 

"Now, who are you and what are you doing here?" The man graveled out. He was strangely authoritative for someone who looked to be only a handful of years older than Dean. 

Dean was drooling and fidgeting. 

Sam was obviously gonna have to take point on this one.

"We're vloggers. Y'know, video bloggers? We travel around looking for things that are out of the ordinary. Unnatural phenomena. I'm Sam and this hot mess is my brother Dean." At that, Dean finally shut his mouth and shot a glare Sam's way. "So, uh, who are you?" 

The man looked at Sam, then Dean. Their gazes locked again and when he answered he addressed Dean. Rude. 

"My name is Castiel." 

Sam waited for more, but Dean didn't seem to require further information and so this Cas-tee-el didn't give any. 

"Alright then. Anyway, we thought this place was abandoned so we were gonna hole up here while we looked into the stuff that's been happening in these woods. Is that why you're here?" 

"You think this might be a ghost?" 

Castiel finally broke eye contact with his brother to frown deeply at Sam. "Not a ghost, no. Bigfoot." He looked at Sam as if he'd grown a second head. "Why would there be a ghost of an apeman walking around a Washington State Park?" 

Sam guessed he had a point.

"Fine. Bigfoot. Are you sure?" This was disappointing to say the least. Yet another wild goose chase. Once Dean got his mind out of the gutter, he was gonna be pissed. 

"Well, it's possibly a bit more complicated than that," Castiel said carefully.

"How so?" Dean asked. Welcome to the conversation dumbass. 

"I don't know yet." 

Dean, again, seemed fine with this as an answer and simply shrugged then grinned. 

"Alright then, sun's up, let's get out there." 

**Into the Woods**

  
'Out there' proved to be an enormous forest populated mostly by spruce trees, conifers and the occasional squirrel or moose. Hard to tell in the denser areas, Sam thought. The three men, Castiel dressed rather more appropriately than the government get up in jeans and a hoodie, hiked through roots taller than some suburban trees, clambering around the spiky trunks of firs that were intent on pulling at his hair. Sam thought longingly of his laptop, of the warm and clean lecture halls of Stanford, and the neat dorm he had picked. He sighed, watching Dean and Cas sharing long looks and 'accidental hand brushing'. 

Rolling his eyes he redirected his camera into the trees. 

Roughly an hour in and Cas froze, stilling Dean with a hand to his shoulder. Sam stopped too, and tried to slowly pan the camera around to whatever the hunter had seen or heard. 

"What is…" Sam began in a whisper. Cas raised a finger to his lips then pointed to the west, through a small clearing in the trees. Sam gasped and raised the camera to his chest, bracing it as well as he could to keep it steady while he zoomed in on the tall, dark, and not-so-handsome, creature that was stalking between the trees ahead. 

"Holy shit." Sam breathed.

When the men moved forward, picking their way through the terrain to get a better look, the animal passed behind a large trunk and disappeared. Cas ran towards the tree, running around it, looking up and around but he eventually just shrugged, defeated. Sam—not for the first time— wondered what Castiel could have encountered that made this so normal to him. 

Sharing a look with Dean they mutually decided this was enough nature for one day. 

"Let's go back. Regroup." Dean sighed. "I'm starved." 

Typical. 

**Back to Cabin**

Empty plates littered the cabin's table along with various notebooks and folders. Cas tried to read another passage regarding woodland sprites but Dean's curiosity got the better of his concentration. 

"So Cas, you're a hunter huh? What's the scariest thing you've killed?" Dean's teeth bit distractingly into the wood of a pencil. Cas suddenly found it rather hard to think straight, pretending to consider the question for a moment when every hunter knew that a wendigo was the scariest thing to take down single-handed. Cas cleared his throat. 

"Wendigo. Definitely. They are descended from people who were trapped in the mountains and reduced to cannibalism. They can mimic human voices. They are fast, clever, and very hard to kill. Only fire will do it." 

Dean's eyes were wide and Castiel took great pleasure in seeing his adam's apple bob nervously. Cas wasn't particularly proud of his vocation, he always thought of it as just something that needed to be done. However, having this beautiful man hanging on his every word was certainly a perk of the job. He racked his brain for anything impressive.

"Once I stumbled upon the finest apple pie I had ever eaten," Dean perked up at that, so Castiel continued by playing to this new found information. "Crisp sweet apple, dripping with tangy juices." He let his mouth roll around the words before licking his lips, "With flakey, buttery pastry. Mmm, and a touch of cinnamon. Perfect." Dean had actually leaned closer so Cas was reluctant to move on, but he did anyway, hoping the drama and intrigue outweighed Dean's obvious pie fetish. "Anyway, it turned out this town had been sacrificing a man and a woman to a pagan god who had possessed a scarecrow. The apple harvest was bountiful and succulent, blessed. After a particularly intense run around, I burnt its tree and—poof—gone. Damn shame though. That was good pie." Cas chuckled, he'd blunted the tension with a joke but couldn't regret it when Dean let out a full bellied laugh. 

"Aw, dude. Must have been a tough decision!" Dean was still chuckling to himself when Sam came back, laptop balanced on his arm. 

"I've just uploaded our video and...you know what?" Sam interrupted himself, "with HD cameras on every phone, some even 4k, why all the fuzzy ass footage? I mean, zooming in while moving is never gonna work." He sighed and went on with a smirk. "Anyway, I uploaded our footage and cut around the bits of solid flirting from you guys. The geolocation functionality you added has pinpointed its appearance at exactly this spot... here." 

Cas spun the map on the table around so Sam could find the correct coordinates to mark. 

"And here…" Another red cross. "And here." And another, to form a neat equilateral triangle in the northern most aspect of the park. 

Cas and Dean both leaned over the map for a closer look, Cas acutely aware that Dean was only a mere inch or two away, both humming in interest. 

Dean straightened suddenly and rushed to his duffle, rummaging through it to pull out a flash drive. He handed it over to Sam, waving impatiently to get it plugged in. Cas watched Dean get more animated as he waited for Sam to load up whatever was on the drive. A beep and a whir later and Dean grabbed the laptop and sat down in front of it. 

"With this bad boy, we can basically photoshop a video in real time. I'll set the contrast way up to bring all this out of the shadow." He gestured to the surrounding wooded area. "The clearing and the big fella himself are gonna get washed out, but we'll be able to see what else is in that magic triangle." 

He clicked around the screen a few times then hit play as Cas and Sam gathered around Dean to watch. The footage was over saturated, with bright purples and yellows appearing from nowhere in pixelated swathes, but each tree was much lighter and therefore somewhat clearer. After a few minutes Cas took great pleasure in leaning over Dean to rewind then slow down the playback. He pressed further against his side to point out a mark he'd spotted on a tree.

"What's that?" Cas looked down as Dean looked up. Faces close, they stared until 

Sam huffed and pushed between them to peer at the screen. He elbowed his brother.

"Can you enhance this or whatever?" Sam asked and Dean snorted. 

"This ain't CSI, dude but I'll see what I can do." Dean began by saving a still of the paused image and bringing it up in a separate window. Cas tried to follow along but computers had never really been his thing. He had only just recently gotten a cellular phone. 

Dean had manifested some sliding bars and was fiddling with the levels. Contrast up again, brightness too. The image flared white now and again but soon evened out to show a couple of swirls with a horizontal line separating them carved right into the bark. Castiel didn't recognise the mark but he hoped, after canvassing the park during opening hours, they might find someone who did.

**Locals**

Dean stood at the edge of a ramshackle marketplace set up beside the gravel expanse calling itself a parking lot. He could tell immediately these women were locals as they lacked any of the tell tale trappings of tourists.

"I'm telling you. It's not bigfoot. <i>Our<i/> bigfoot wouldn't say boo to a goose. More likely to throw something and run away than parade around in the open. She doesn't want to be on TV, she wants to feed her folks and her babes and be left alone." The woman nudged her companion amiably. "Ain't that right sweetheart, s'all most of us up here want." 

Dean nodded, he certainly agreed with the women. He had been traveling too long. He could feel the pull of four walls covered in movie posters, a yard with a few flowers growing and a kitchen. Goddamn, his very own kitchen. 

Before he could fall further into his fantasy, Sam grabbed him by the elbow and directed him to a van-slash-shop-slash-flier explosion. Calling his thanks and farewells over his shoulder, he glared at his rude little brother, but still followed him to the curious mess of stuff for sale. Dean wouldn't call himself a germaphobe, he had Sam to do that, but he wasn't overly fond of <i>touching<i/> certain things, especially hairy, leathery things with bits of wood and moss attached. Sam, however, was picking everything up, turning it over in his giant paws, even giving some things a sniff. Dean grimaced and subconsciously wiped his hand on his pants. Sam thrust his hand under Dean's nose.

"Here, smell this." Sam ordered. 

Dean reluctantly takes a whiff. 

"Patchouli right? I know it's pretty common among students or whatever but when you put it with these…" Sam untied the red ribbon holding the little pouch together and cradled the contents in his hand, he picked through it as Dean watched, horrified. "See here, this is supposed to be a baby's finger bone..." Dean's head shot up "...but it's actually a chicken femur. This here, looks like a pinch of patchouli when it should be tobacco. This is basically a very amateur hex bag." Sam concluded. Dean rubbed his face and sighed.

"Man I hate witches. So gross." Dean shuddered. "At least whoever is selling this crap doesn't actually have any kind of power or talent." 

"Excuse me?" Dean turned to find the owner of the angry voice. "How dare you? I was trained by Lady Midnight herself." 

"Lady Midnight' huh? Where can I find her?" Dean asked. Beside him, Sam had already googled her and pulled Dean away by his elbow again. "Jesus Sammy, manners? Know any?" 

Sam merely cast him a bitchface and held up his phone, open at a webpage showing a tiny redhead in a tight, green velvet dress. "Meet Lady Midnight, otherwise known as Rowena. She runs online classes in witchcraft." Sam smirked. "It's a correspondence course but she lives not too far away. Call Castiel?"

"Yeah, ok." Dean already had his phone out and to his ear before Sam had even finished speaking. "Cas? Hey, we got a lead. A local witch called Lady Midnight AKA Rowena. Oh? You know her? From back East, huh? Okay." Dean paused for a few seconds, listening, "Okie dokie, see you there. You too." 

Without looking at Sam, Dean put his phone away and made for the car, expecting him to follow. He could hear the giant shuffling through the bark chips beneath them as Dean mulled over the facts of the case, not once thinking about blue eyes or gravelly voices. At all. The thoughts of thick thighs and rough hands Dean definitely <i>wasn't</i> having were only briefly interrupted by having a quick look at his phone to look at a map, nothing else. Not checking for texts or anything. Dean was aware of his standard levels of denial regarding his feelings but this was a new height. He knew his libido was going slightly haywire around the hunter, but there was something else there, something, dare he even think it, deeper? Dean shook his head, earning a weird look from Sam. 

"You ok Dean? Thinking pretty hard there. Don't hurt yourself." Sam smirked. 

"Oh ha ha, m'fine. Cas is at Rowena's cave or whatever. Witches, man." Dean shuddered. "Lets go." 

* * *

One uneventful drive —consisting of Sam tapping away on his laptop and Dean drifting in and out of various fantasies —led them to a large, white building. The facade gleamed even in the low light, and its sharp angles were modern and crisp. Dean looked down at his phone to tap out a text to Cas. 

> > Can you confirm the area code? 
> 
> > This doesn't seem right.
> 
> < Don't judge a book by its cover Dean. This is the place. I am at the window.

Dean's head shot up to see Cas' bulky figure at an upstairs Juliet balcony. His stomach turned at the idea that Cas knew this woman well enough to be upstairs in her home. The feeling only intensified when the woman herself approached the window, raising a hand to Cas' bicep. Dean looked away. Shit. He wasn't possessive by nature, but that stung. 

As Sam approached the front door, Dean following sullenly, a buzzer rang out and Sam lurched forward to pull the door open. The entryway was much like the outside, large, white, and classy, and Dean was very much reminded that he lived out of his car. He was drawn from his malaise by Cas grinning at him over the polished steel banister. Cas did seem genuinely pleased to see him, despite the admonishment over the phone, and Dean immediately felt lighter. It was only when Sam and Rowena cleared their throats pointedly in unison that Dean realized he and Cas were doing <i>it</i> again. 

The soul searching, deeply intense, staring thing. 

"You must be the Winchesters!" The diminutive redhead trilled. "Such a pleasure. Castiel here has told me all about you. Well, all about you," she pointed at Dean, "but not so much about skinny-malinky here." She sidled into Sam's personal space, craning her neck to give him a salacious once over. She held out a tiny hand, palm down and Sam shook the tips of her fingers awkwardly. Rowena smirked up at him then clapped her hands abruptly. "So! Castiel tells me you're looking for bigfoot? Firstly, its bigfoot, lowercase, and they're shy. You aren't going to find them wandering around in the plains and foothills of some state park." Behind Rowena, Cas was nodding along.

Dean let the idea that bigfoot existed just wash over him for right then, instead focusing on following Rowena as she took off down the hallway to a tapestry hanging over a door. Cas held back the heavy fabric as Dean ducked through behind the witch. The room opened out immediately into a dark space, and Dean tried to see past the ring of candle light in the center while his eyes adjusted. Ah, this was more like what he was expecting and he threw a look at Cas to say as much. 

Cas just shrugged sheepishly. 

The altar in the center was built of bones that were probably, and horribly, human. The obligatory candles and bronze dishes were scattered around artfully. Incongruously though, a yoga mat lay on the floor in front of the altar. Rowena must have noticed him staring and waved a dismissive hand. 

"My knees aren't what they used to be." She sniffed before gliding over to a bookcase that had appeared from a dark corner, and ran a finger along the leather spines. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled out a large tome bound in red, embroidered silk with gold edged pages and laid it reverently down on a nearby dictionary stand. 

Dean fidgeted as she slowly lifted the cover, consulted a few post-it notes sticking out at intervals, then licked a finger delicately. She proceeded to turn each page individually, gently laying them down. One by one. Dean groaned aloud, rolling his eyes and both Rowena and Sam shot him a dirty look. She started to move even slower, meeting Dean's eye after every turn. 

"Alright Rowena, stop antagonizing him." Cas scolded her. "What do you have?" 

With a shrug at Cas and wink at Dean, she stepped away from the lectern, gesturing at them to take a look. All three men crowded in to see the symbol from the video, illuminated beautifully, nestled among exquisite calligraphy. Dean could practically hear Sam drooling over it and Cas leaned right in, tilting his head to look from several angles. Dean tried to parse what was written, but it was some kind of Sanskrit, which even he could admit he was rusty in. He pulled out his phone, flicking to his translation app and aimed it at the page. The characters swam until some were picked out by the app, but only the parts utilized in modern languages were highlighted. Dean took photos of each section, lamenting when it appeared whatever type of ink the symbol was written in couldn't be captured by the camera. 

"Can anyone read this?" Dean asked. 

"Of course." Cas intoned solemnly, not a trace of arrogance. He gently ran his finger from left to right, muttering lowly before clearing his throat. "On the subject of sprul-pa or tulpa." Cas dragged his finger down, clearly editing on the fly for laymen. "Emanation bodies—nirmanakaya, sprulsku, sprul-pa and so on—are connected to trikay." He interrupted himself to explain. "Trikay is the Buddhist doctrine of the three bodies of the Buddha." 

Dean spared a glance at Sam who had his Serious Face on. 

"They are usually emanation bodies of celestial beings,” Cas continued, “though ‘unrealized beings’ like humans may have their own emanation bodies or even be emanation bodies. In some cases, if the concept is strong enough a tulpa can be invoked via this symbol and this incantation." 

"So if we were to use this spell and symbol on, say, Santa, then there would be enough energy to create him." Dean interrupted with a gleeful look. 

Cas smiled at him fondly then turned the page... to find the incantation missing. 

Rowena shot toward the book with a gasp.

"What is this? Wh-who did this?!" She ran a finger along the torn edge of the page and her eyes narrowed. "That bitch!" Her pupils flashed purple and the room filled with static energy, setting Dean's teeth on edge. 

Cas dropped into a defensive position between the brothers and the witch, hand reaching to the gun tucked in his pants. "Rowena? Calm down. Who did this?" He spoke softly, his free hand out, palm up. 

Rowena seemed to get a hold of herself as she held Cas' hand tightly. "Helena the Damned. Otherwise, known as Liz from the salon." She snorted. "She was a pupil of mine. She's local, so we studied in here, and although she didn't show a great deal of natural talent, I taught her some rituals and incantations. The basics to sell at her little shack in the woods." 

"You're telling us that there is an amateur witch-slash-stylist out there playing with ancient Tibetan magic?" Dean hissed. "Well, that's just peachy. Alright, what did you teach her exactly? So we know what we're up against." 

Rowena turned to her bookcase again and pulled out a slim, black pleather covered volume, she flicked through it before landing on a page filled with round, cheerful handwriting. 

"This is a magical clone of her, frankly rather tacky, grimoire. This page outlines the spells I have shown her that she managed to replicate. Fortunately, there's not many. Get that incantation back boys and you will be owed a powerful favor." She bowed her head and gestured magnanimously to the door. 

Sam left first, squinting into the relative brightness of the hallway, Dean followed, doing the same. He looked back to see Rowena drag Cas down to her level so Dean quickly averted his gaze, stomach curdling again. Sam loitered at the front door, ostensibly waiting for Cas but perhaps hoping to get flirted with again. Dean just wanted to get out of there, he was uncomfortably warm, the house was too bright and whatever incense shit was burning was giving him a headache. 

Cas appeared sooner rather than later, striding toward them, trench coat billowing. As he approached, Dean took an absurd amount of satisfaction in that the smear of lipstick was high on Cas' cheek, and no lower. 

* * *

Dean, Sam, and Castiel wound through the narrow road leading back to the makeshift market in Olympic Park in convoy. Sam was, again, tapping away at his laptop. Dean tried peering over at the screen.

"Eyes on the road, Dean. I've had a few more alerts. There seems to be much clearer footage now, not just smartphone videos, but high-res stuff. This could be really bad Dean. I've been thinking about the concept of the tulpa and how its shaped by the lore and beliefs of people. Based on what that woman told you, the locals think that bigfoot are reclusive and gentle, right?" 

Dean glanced over and nodded. 

"But,” Sam carried on, “now that this latest film has gone viral the comments are worrying. Most of these people are freaking out. Check this out. 'My kids play in the woods behind our house. What if there are more of these things? What do they eat? How big do they get?' There are a lot like that, people concerned about their kids and pets. This one is just, ew..." Sam pulled a face. "'good thing I got my .404 Jeffery. Call her the BFG (big f*cking gun). I heard these animals can rip a man's arm clean off.' That comment has over a hundred replies, comparing rifles and ammo. There are plenty of people swapping horror stories. So if this <i>is</i> a tulpa, it has the potential to get pretty damn nasty." Sam shook his head. "People, man. Jeeze."

"You said it." Dean slowed as he approached the park, pulling onto the verge. Cas was right behind them. "Alright, I'll go talk to Liz, you have a look around to see if anyone here is causing any trouble. Those hunters are bad news dude, be careful. Cas is with me."

"Yeah, I figured." Sam smirked.

"Ha ha, bitch. Get going." Dean gestured to Cas to follow him, striding off to the stall of gross knick knacks. He vaguely heard Sam's “jerk” shouted at his back, and he smiled. Some things never change. Dean turned to watch Cas catch up, coat flapping and tie askew. 

"Ok Cas, let's have a word with Madam Darkforce or whatever." 

Dean filled Castiel in on Sam's theory as they walked. 

* * *

Cas decided to take the lead with this part. He had a pretty good knowledge of witchcraft, and Rowena had slipped him a truth charm earlier. While not very powerful, it would perhaps grease the wheels a little. Slipping his (fake) badge from his inside pocket he flashed it at the hokey vendor. 

"Excuse me, Miss? I'm Agent Dwight, this is Agent Armstrong. We need to ask you a few questions about this symbol." He brought the altered screencap up on his phone, and pushed it close to the startled woman’s face. "It's been carved into trees that are several thousand years old. We could cite whoever did this for vandalism at least, or even desecration... Unless they were to cooperate?" 

Cas was relieved to find the truth charm didn't work on the wearer, as trumped up charges versus 'immunity or reduced sentence' usually produced favourable results from suspects. She eyed them shiftily, looking as though she might bolt but just sighed, her body sagging like her strings had been cut. 

"Fine. It wasn't me. At first anyway. I found the symbol in Rowena's book and I was looking for a tattoo for, like, so long. So I wanted to take the page but I heard someone coming and I just ripped out the fancier one with the latin or whatever around it... but then I had this spell." The words all rushed out together and Cas tried to keep up, hoping Dean was having an easier time of it. "And so my husband thought that we could make some money. At first I didn't get it, like, I thought he would draw the thing and say the other thing and it would create merchandise out of thin air, but he just told me to 'not worry my pretty little head over it', so I didn't." Liz blushed and shuffled on the spot. "Until it sorta stopped working as well. At first I got loads of customers but then they trickled out, so I did another symbol, then another, um, and a few more." 

Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to three in his head. Then to ten. He finally stopped at fifteen. "Alright Ma'am. Do you have the incantation with you?" 

"No, I keep some things in a lockbox in my cabin." She gestured further into the park. "We can go get it. It's only a mile or so." She pulled the shutter down on her stall, dragged her kitty from under the counter and strode off into the woods. Cas shared a look with Dean before taking off after her. She walked quickly, taking turns seemingly at random. The men, in dress shoes and suits, struggled to keep up. 

"If I didn't know any better I would say she's trying to lose us." Dean noted dryly. Castiel agreed and picked up the pace. 

A cut off scream had them running full pelt only to find an empty clearing, the plastic float box lying on the ground. 

They stopped, breathing heavily and listening intently but there was nothing but silence. No birdsong or wind moving the trees. Nothing. 

"Well this is just eerie. What's it doing this far south?" Dean said.

"Didn't she say she had a copy in her cabin? If the incantation was performed near the symbol then it stands to reason that the tulpas perimeter has expanded." Cas swore internally. Then externally. "Fuck." 

Dean pulled out his phone, dialing Sam as he ran after Cas, who had taken off in the vague direction they had been headed. 

"Sam, could you get me an exact location on Liz's cabin? About a mile from the market. South East-ish. Thanks." He hung up, keeping the phone in his hand as he ran. "Cas, stop, wait! We could be running the wrong way for all we know, just stop a sec." Breathing heavily Dean propped himself against a log and stared at his phone. 

"How do you have signal here?" Cas peered over the top of Dean's cell then brought out his own. "You have three bars while I have none." Cas noticed a blush spreading rapidly up Dean's face and, for once, Dean wouldn't look Cas in the eye. 

"I fiddled with it a bit. No big deal. Just amped up the antenna, wrote and installed some oscillating algorithms so that it searches for the best cell tower, which isn't necessarily the closest, by the way, and increased the battery to cover it." 

Now that Cas was looking closely he could see that it was slightly bulkier than a normal phone. He wondered, not for the first time, at the things Dean could achieve if he only had the resources. The device in question chirped. Dean brought up the coordinates that Sam had sent, pointing just a bit further East than where they had been running. They set off at a trot and, despite their dress shoes slipping on leaf litter and suit jackets snagging on branches, they made it the rest of the way in short order. 

Upon reaching the cabin, Cas tore through the unlocked front door and scanned the small space. A metal box under the window drew his eye and he lunged for it, already pulling a set of picks from his pocket. He made quick work of the flimsy lock then threw it open. It was filled to the brim with papers. Cas growled and started to pick through the documents, not wanting to torch her birth certificate or something else important. He found the incantation in a wallet near the top, but the symbol was missing. 

Tucking it inside his jacket, he reassessed his fastidiousness when he heard a cut off scream echo through the open door. He patted his pockets but Dean appeared at his side with a bag of salt and a lit zippo, and, smiling gratefully, Cas chucked them both in the box. The old paper caught easily and the two men carried it outside.

"Cas? You know how this thing is shaped by perception?" 

Cas nodded, dread curling in his stomach. 

"Um, well, take a look at this." Dean pulled a cheap paperback out of his back pocket and handed it over. Cas balked at the cover image. A buxom young woman swooning lustfully in the arms of a bigfoot. Speechless, Castiel made to throw it on the fire but Dean stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You don't need to burn that right? No point destroying just one copy." Dean pocketed it again without another word. "We better hurry, Sam is investigating any nearby caves. With perfect timing Dean's phone chirped again and he took off at a sprint.

Cas hesitated for just a second then followed.

* * *

They slowed as they neared a deep gouge in the rockface. It was not quite a cave, but it did have an overhang of rock and greenery. Dean wondered how Sam had even found it, but it was clearly the right place judging by the detritus scattered around—half eaten plant matter, fishbones and small animal remains. Dean could hear fevered grunting and shared a panicked look with Cas. They both drew a gun. Cas had an old fashioned revolver and Dean had a pistol; both small caliber, and he worried they wouldn't be able to take down something as big as sasquatch. Cas reached out and squeezed Dean's forearm reassuringly. 

"Don't worry Dean," he whispered, "this one's magic." Cas shot him a rare smile, almost cocky, and then, with Dean sticking close, began his advance on the cave. 

The rescue was a bit of a blur and, if Dean was honest with himself, he didn't do much. 

Cas had moved quickly, seemingly taking in the situation instantly despite the darkness, shooting the ape in the back of the head where it had been crouched over the abducted woman. Dean only remembered a mass of fur, dragging the stunned yet disturbingly <i>disappointed</i> woman to safety, then watching Cas exit the cave, smoking gun in hand. 

It was unfairly hot and Dean couldn't be blamed for the minor memory loss. He watched, dazed, as Cas rounded on the woman. "You will take us to each symbol you have created. Every. Single. One." 

Cas had his back to him but based on the woman's expression Dean didn't envy her. 

Cas hauled her to her feet and pushed her in the direction of the nearest carving. "Go," Cas growled and Dean squirmed. 

They traipsed around the woods, the light fading rapidly while they slashed through every symbol the woman had marked into the ancient trees. They walked the poor excuse for a witch back to her cabin, Cas threatening to come back for her if they so much as hear a whisper of her practicing magic again. She had nodded furiously and retreated behind her locked door. 

"That won't have destroyed it completely." Cas intoned gravely. "Tulpa manifestation is magic powered by people and their network of consciousness. If you think of the way a computer works, in this case all the people who believe in the classic Bigfoot 'myth',"—he raised his hands to finger quote—"and its associated lore, provide the processing for this tulpa. Since the videos, this belief has skyrocketed and a psuedomyth has been created." 

That can't be good. Especially bearing in mind the wildly different versions of bigfoot stories they had encountered already. 

Dean thought about the book burning a hole in his pocket, the book that he was definitely not gonna read later. Nope. He glanced at Cas, suddenly concerned about the possibility of magical telepathy, but Cas just gazed back until Dean's phone rang. 

He briefly relayed Cas' theory to Sam, promising to talk more after a shower and some food at the cabin.

* * *

Sam made it back to the car first and leaned his laptop on the roof. He had just shared the most likely coordinates for the cave with Dean, and was waiting for a call back. After way too long, he grew anxious and called his brother.

Upon answering it Dean launched into an abridged version of what happened and filled him in on Cas' thoughts. Sam was reminded of something in that moment, something loitering on the edge of his brain that he couldn't quite hold on to... Damn, hopefully whatever it was would come back to him. He ran a few more searches on the lore of bigfoot and found that each state along the Canadian border had its own legends from Washington to Maine. Even as far south as Massachusetts. Wait...Massachusetts? Sam hurried to flick through his bookmarks. Opening up a couple of likely pages, he scanned quickly until he found the article that had been tickling his memory. The Star newspaper was a tabloid circulated locally in Massachusetts and most of its staff was made up of students from Wellesley College. He had noticed this paper in particular because of its many articles about either mythical creatures or serial killers, and nothing much in between. He navigated to the staff pages to find a point of contact with the author of a bigfoot article dated a couple of years ago. Eileen Leahy, a brunette with a string of letters after her name, writes from Eureka, Kansas—Sam squinted at the screen and snorted—and has a cat named Lord Tyrion. He pulled up Outlook and paused on a fresh email. 

Now he just needed to figure out how he could explain the situation without sounding insane. 

An hour later found him in front of a lengthy message, with the evidence and his number attached, which he saved as a draft to run it by Cas first. He hoped his theory would pan out. Not for the first time, Sam lamented the fact that the impala only had one set of keys, and as the temperature went down with the sun he debated with himself whether it would be worth Dean's wrath to break in. 

* * *

Cas reached for Dean's elbow as the man stumbled for the third time in as many minutes and decided to just not let go this time. Dean smiled his thanks, blushing furiously, then cleared his throat.

"So, Cas, how did you get into this?" Dean asked with clearly forced composure. "Like me? Did you see something?" 

Cas wondered briefly if he should lie to make Dean feel at ease about his own experiences but decided, ultimately, to go with the truth. 

"I have a knack for languages, and by the time I had to apply for college I was already fluent in Russian, French, Spanish and Italian. I gained a scholarship at Stanford to study further lexicon. It was during my third year that I was approached by a man named Ketch. He claimed to be from a secret society that fought monsters," Cas huffed, "and, of course, I didn't believe him, even after he offered me a job. Apparently they needed a linguist to translate particularly old and complicated texts. He was a bit of an asshole, flirtatious and condescending, but he left me his card and a flash drive and told me to think about it." Cas paused, the air was cold enough to catch in his chest as they hiked. "I went over all the evidence he had given me on the drive and shared it with a couple of people, my sister Anna and my brother Gabe, who both, surprisingly, suggested I call him." 

Dean had pulled back a bit, so Cas stopped and leaned on a tree stump to give him a chance to subtly catch his breath. Cas may be older than him, but has also had the benefit of not living off of fried foods. 

"So this Agent K," Dean huffed, "shows you HQ, gives you the lowdown on all the things that go bump in the night, and you find yourself part of a super secret organisation? Did you get a decoder ring?" Dean chuckled and Cas frowned. 

"If you mean this," He raised his right hand to show Dean his thick silver ring, "then yes, we all have one." 

Dean stared for a second then grabbed Cas' hand, squinting at the plain metal. Cas could feel Dean's warm breath on his fingers and took the opportunity to study his face up close. Long lashes and freckles captivated him until Dean glanced up to treat him to a full frontal assault of vivid green eyes. Cas, caught staring, blushed and pulled his hand away. 

"How does it work? There’s no characters," Dean asked. Cas raised the back of his hand to his own lips, locked eyes with the enthralled man in front of him and breathed warm air across the surface of the ring. A thin band of dim light glowed around the middle of the smooth metal. Letters shone on one half and jagged symbols on the other. The marks faded as the surface cooled. 

"Holy shit." Dean whispered, so close now that his warm breath reactivated the magic and sent a shiver up Cas' arm. Dean grinned. "That's awesome." 

Their gazes locked again for a few moments before one, or maybe both of them, made the abrupt decision to keep moving. 

The sun had set by the time they reached a shivering Sam at the car. He shot Dean the strange exasperated grimace that he seemed to save only for his brother which was countered, intelligently, with a raised middle finger. 

"Come on Sammy, get in, it's freezing out here!" 

Sam's expression intensified as he slid into the passenger seat. Cas made his way to his own car and prepared to follow the huge black beast back to the cabin. 

**Eileen's article**

**BIGFOOT'S EXISTENCE PROVEN!**

Sort of. 

##### A new species of ape has been documented in the lower regions of a Washington State Park. This unlikely environment has drawn the migration of a benign species heretofore unknown to us. Based on the evidence collected, this animal may very well be the source of the Bigfoot legend, and seems to be a direct descendant of Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest primate to have walked the earth. Locals have described the creature as shy but gentle, merely using the foothills during the colder months to gather extra food for newborns. From what we have determined, the bigfoot reproduce rarely and in very small numbers and have a long natural lifespan. Therefore this species has been expedited to join the endangered species register. Despite this legal protection, big game hunters have been flocking to the area in the hopes of bagging the ultimate trophy, however, locals have taken it upon themselves to protect these gentle giants in a more traditional and potentially fatal way.

#####  These animals have no real interest in humanity, however, it has already been noted that they will aide lost travellers by leaving food and directing them to the nearest river. This suggests a level of intelligence, emotional and otherwise, beyond any other known species besides humans. Cont. on pg 3.

Dean put the tablet down with a grin. "Nice. Great idea Sammy, now we just need to let the news circulate. Give everyone a chance to re-assimilate what they know about bigfoot, and the tulpa will remain harmless. Hell, with this endorsement it could probably run for president!"

Sam dug around under the sofa for any stray research, coming up with a single sheet of paper covered in doodles. He recognised the penmanship of his brother and wasn't the least bit surprised there were sketches of tired blue eyes and chapped lips. Even the man's ear had made it into Dean's little portfolio. He may as well have written ‘Mr Dean Novak’ over and over in his journal. 

Sam shook his head and chuckled, torn between ridiculing Dean or helping out with something that had real potential. Soft renders of a person's features didn't scream 'one night stand.' Of course, Sam thought to himself with a smirk, he could do both. 

He tucked the page into his pocket and finished packing up. 

Leaning on the roof of the car, Sam tried not to watch the awkward mess happening in front of him. They'd driven South, ending up in Portland, before they would go their separate ways—Cas flying east and Dean dropping Sam off at Stanford to start the school year. Christ, this was just embarrassing. 

"Hey Dean? Do me a favor and grab us coffee. Maybe Castiel will have some before he goes?" Sam kept his puppy dog eyes at a steady level four, but Dean didn't even look at him. His brothers face lit up and he took off towards the nearest coffee machine—a hole in the wall down the street—with only a lingering backwards look at Cas. 

Sam cleared his throat for the third time and Cas tore his eyes away from Dean's retreating form and squinted at him. 

He pulled the page of drawings from his inner pocket and, between two fingers, held it out to Cas over the hood. It was taken from him gingerly and Castiel held eye contact as he unfolded it, only looking down to spread it out. Intense blue eyes flicked across the simple sheet of lined paper in awe, a small smile blossoming on his face. Cas looked towards the coffee shop, a blush staining his cheeks, and ran a hand over the graphite. With a final long look he folded the paper and placed it in the pocket over his heart. Tapping it lightly, he smiled broadly at Sam, showing his gums. He looked ten years younger and more awake than he ever had. 

Sam wasn't ashamed to admit that he got a little teary eyed but he was sure to wipe it away before Dean came back, whistling, with the coffee. 

"Sammy, black for you." Dean handed him a take out cup roughly the size of his head, "and a hazelnut double shot soy latte, no sugar for you." He handed the same bucket of coffee to Cas with a broad smile. "So, we'll head off after these then?" Dean asked before taking the smallest sip possible. 

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed—at both Dean's procrastination and his memorisation of Cas' coffee order—then took a few steps away to take out his phone. He scrolled through his emails, flagging one from Eileen for later, but most of his attention was on the two men standing awkwardly by the car that was about to separate them. While Sam had moved to give them some semblance of privacy, he could still hear a lot of what they were saying, up until Cas stepped right into Dean's personal space to whisper in his ear. 

Dean turning bright pink from collar to hairline made Sam want to sell his soul to have his camera to hand, but also made him wish he didn't have such a vivid imagination and—like a car accident— Sam couldn't look away. 

Dean and Castiel seemed to be caught up in each other like a tractor beam. Both of them now knowing what everyone else did already, that they were into each other but also <i>good</i> for each other. 

Sam released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding when Castiel, finally, leaned forward and kissed Dean. 

Sickeningly sweet and chaste, Dean turned impossibly brighter, and twined their fingers together. They sipped their coffees, sharing shy looks and a odd few words while Sam busied himself replying to Eileen's email. 

A full half hour later, Sam's cup empty for most of that time and Dean still nursing his, he finally got impatient and reminded Cas that he had a flight to catch. 

Sam got in the car and averted his gaze for a few moments to let them say their goodbyes. He coughed loudly after another ten minutes. 

Dean got in the car, threw him his own particular brand of bitchface that he clearly thought was more menacing than it actually was, and slammed the door. His eyes were on the rear view mirror for way longer than was safe, but then they finally hit the highway and Dean settled in to his familiar long distance rigor. 

**Dropping off Sam**

Dean unloaded the last of Sam's boxes onto the sidewalk then pulled his big little brother into a hug. He clutched briefly at the back of Sam's stupid dog t-shirt, only letting go to brush his fingers under his own eyes. He wasn't crying, he was just tired. It was a long drive from Washington to Palo Alto. Who could blame him for being a bit emotional? Their recent online successes had helped Sam gain a hefty scholarship to study investigative journalism at Stanford, and Dean was thrilled Sam was taking advantage of it. While Sam ferried his remaining stuff up to his room, Dean eyed his brother’s dorm, ostensibly checking out the security. Looking up and down the deserted street he pulled a roll of thick, shiny tape from his inside pocket and tore off a long strip to stick on the windowsill, and another for the base of the door frame. Sam reappeared and cocked an eyebrow. Dean held out the roll.

"I made you this. Um, for a housewarming gift. It's Stape." Dean held out the roll and Sam looked blankly at it.

"Yeah, Dean, I can see its tape." 

"No bitch, 'S.T.A.P.E.' its embedded with salt. Stick it around your windows and door. Keep it handy for the floor. Y'know, just in case." 

"Wow, thanks man." Sam chuckled. "I'm gonna miss all this shit." 

"Pah, don't worry Sammy, just subscribe to the Spirit Hunters channel!" Dean slapped him on the back and Sam grimaced.

"You're not gonna keep doing that are you? Now that we know what's really out there?" Sam pursed his lips and Dean knew what that meant. The puppy dog eyes were gonna come out full force. "Please Dean? Haven't you done enough? Wasn't that damn tulpa enough proof for you?" 

If Dean were being perfectly honest with himself, he had no idea what he wanted to do next. He felt it might be a little late for college, especially if he needed any kind of scholarship, as his high school grades weren't exactly stellar. He supposed he could always work for his Uncle Bobby, probably the only person besides Sammy who had believed him, in his salvage yard. Dean decided to keep that as Plan C, as the validation of meeting Cas and finding out about monsters had boosted his confidence and self esteem by leaps and bounds. He really did believe that he could do better, that he could make something of himself. Maybe he could continue the channel but from behind a desk, recruit some young blood to go out in the field… He scoffed and shook his head. Dean was barely twenty-six—not exactly an old man. He could just syndicate the brand or something. 

"I dunno man. Maybe? Mom and dad will be thrilled." He laughed. "I'll keep going on my own for a bit. See if anything sticks. Come here." Dean pulled Sam into another hug, holding on longer this time. "Okay, now fuck off, I'll see you at Thanksgiving." 

Dean pushed Sam away and slid in behind the wheel of his empty car. Sam stood on the sidewalk and waved until Dean couldn't see him in his mirrors anymore. What a dork. Dean only dropped his own hand when he needed to wipe the tiredness from his eyes again. 

**Driving Home**

After another twelve hours on the road and aching at the thought of another—Jesus—forty eight to go, Dean pulled off the interstate into a motel. A <i>clown</i> motel. He grinned evilly. He just had to get as many pictures as possible to send to Sam. Dean wondered if he could maybe even bring Sam here for his birthday or something. The kid deserved a little rest, relaxation, and scarring for life. Looking around, he noted it was actually one of the nicer motels he had stayed at, all the neon bulbs intact and steady, swept concourse—pretty fancy all things considered. He dragged himself into the reception, not even sparing a glance at the teenager behind the desk, and booked a room on the automated system. The keycard clunked into the dispenser and he was on his way to a queen bed with his name on it. 

Upon entering the room, Dean's senses were assaulted by the most lurid bedspread known to man, and walls to match. Jesus Christ. At least the clown theme hadn't been continued. He fiddled with the weird ass light switch panel, reducing the glare of the fluorescent bulbs to a dull glow. Thank fuck. 

Pulling his phone out, he dropped to the bed and tried to toe his boots off as he dialled. 

"Hello, Dean." Dean paused in his grunting efforts to get his boots off and grinned at the clear fondness in Cas' voice. 

"Hey, Cas." Dean sighed, almost wistfully. What could he say? He missed the guy. There weren't many things in life he regretted but he did wish he'd gotten at least a decent make out session in before they’d had to part ways. The shy peck over shitty coffee in Portland before Cas headed east and Sam and Dean headed south wasn't nearly enough to keep him going. He shifted deeper into the unusually thick comforter, stretched an arm above his head, and promptly stalled. What do you say to a man who may or may not be your long distance boyfriend, who also may or may not be a big shot in a clandestine monster fighting organisation? "Um, hey, Cas."

"You said that Dean." 

Dean slapped his forehead with his phone. He was usually so good at this. "So, what're you wearing?" Goddamit. "I mean, um, what do I mean…" Cas chuckled quietly as Dean rambled. "...what are you doing?" Smooth.

"I just got home. It's very quiet." He paused and Dean listened to him breathe for a few seconds. Cas continued, a smirk evident in his voice "So what are you wearing...I mean...doing?" 

Dean blushed and slapped himself again. 

"Smartass. I just got into this ridiculous motel in Tonopah. It's <i>clown</I> themed! I'm gonna get Sammy something from the gift shop." He giggled then cleared his throat. "So it's all quiet in your underground lair? No evil looming?" 

"Well, we do have a demon in the dungeon." Cas chuckled. "He's a bit annoying but I wouldn't say evil." 

"I'm not sure which part of that I'm more interested in, to be honest with ya, buddy…" Dean remarked, wide-eyed. He smooshed his pillow and settled in. "Start with the demon…"

* * *

Dean pulled off Route 50 into Delta and, with a squeal of brakes and a crunch of gravel, he practically drifted into the first motel he saw. He threw his head back, fingers pressed deeply into his eyes, and let out a groan. One eight hour, lead footed drive brought him from Tonopah's number one clown motel to… he leant forward to peer out and his jaw dropped. He wiggled excitedly in his seat, tiredness forgotten as he stared up at the neon cowboy slinging his thumb toward the entrance. Aw, yeah! With renewed vigor, Dean bounced from the car, grabbed his bags and strode across the parking lot to the reception. Everywhere he looked there was western paraphernalia—old photos of famous sheriffs, mounted firearms, even a giant stuffed buffalo head above the check-in desk which yet another bored teenager sat behind. 

"Howdy!" Dean winked, and received a scoff in return. "A single please." Dean asked, unphased. 

He took the offered keycard with a grin and made his way happily to his room. He was disappointed this time to find that the western theme hadn't been carried through into the room as heavily as it was outside, but he did note the wagon wheel headboard, horse paintings and the beautifully tacky cowboy hat lamps. He slumped down on the bedspread that had been printed to look like a sarape and, not for the first time, wished Cas was there too. He bit his lip, thinking about calling him again. Who was he kidding. He dragged himself vaguely upright and dialed. He cleared his throat just as Cas answered, wincing at the sound interrupting Cas' signature greeting. 

" —llo Dean"

"Hey Cas." A brief silence hung before Dean cleared his throat again. "What are you up to? Anything apocalyptic happening?" 

"Well, I did just send someone out to deal with a possible ghoul in Denver, but nothing major, no." Cas hummed. "I'm glad you called. I was hoping we could maybe watch something together? Do you have Netflix? I'm rather partial to a particular hospital drama and the latest season is up."

"Are you asking me to Netflix and chill with you Cas?" Dean said with a smirk as he searched around for his laptop. 

"If you're amenable."

"Hell yeah, I'm amenable. One sec…" Dean brought up his Netflix Party extension and scrolled through. "Okay Cas, you ready?"

"Yes Dean." 

Dean hit play and settled on his side with his laptop on the nightstand and his phone on speaker on the bed. "Hey Cas, what are you wearing?" 

Cas chuckled, and Dean could almost hear his good natured eye roll. "Men of Letters issue sweatpants. And you?" 

Dean considered embellishing the truth for a second, maybe describing his favorite underwear or say he was just lounging in a towel. He dismissed the idea as he had the feeling Cas would see right through the lie. 

"I'm still in my jeans and a flannel. I called you as soon as I got in." Despite being alone Dean ducked his head to hide his blush. "I'm gonna slip into something a bit more comfortable in a bit though."

Deciding he wasn't particularly interested in Dr. Sexy right at this moment, he sighed and dragged his hand back and forth across the fabric of his t-shirt, catching bare skin now and again with his lightly moving fingertips. He pulled his flannel off awkwardly and threw it off the side of the bed. 

"What are you doing Dean?" Cas asked over the sound of a beautiful patient going into cardiac arrest. 

"Just shedding a few layers. Don't mind me." Dean kept up his drifting touches, up across his chest, his thumb catching on a hardened nipple. He shifted on to his back, flicked open the button of his jeans and left the fly hanging open. "Cas? Talk to me?" 

The Party app flicked off from Cas' end. 

"What would you like me to say, Dean?" 

He could imagine Cas' cute little head tilt, which, while alluring in its own way, wasn't the imagery he needed right now. Dean huffed. 

"I dunno man. Describe your room to me or something." Dean shuffled down and let his eyes close. 

"Alright...The Bunker was built in the thirties so there's lots of wood and leather. I've only been here a short while so it isn't exactly cosy. The mattress is memory foam though. I have a green comforter and most of the shelves contain books. My trench coat is hanging on the back of the door. I'm not sure what else to tell you. I have a record player." 

Dean sat up a bit."Yeah? Put something on." Dean listened to Cas move around his room, the muffled thumps as he looked for something. A needle scratch and the soft burn of the beginning of a record, followed by some blues. "Nice Cas." Cas began to hum along absent mindedly, and Dean felt himself drifting. "Keep going." 

"It's warm here, being underground keeps the heat in. That's why I'm only in sweats. I took my shirt off when the furnace kicked in." Dean smiled, now they might get somewhere.

"You took your shirt off huh? You lying there half naked talking to me? Did you have a shower before I called?" 

"I did. My hair is a mess and I'm still flushed and damp." Dean bit his lip as Cas continued. "I smell like my soap which is kind of woodsy." 

"Cas? Do me a favor and take off your sweats." Dean held his breath as he waited for Cas to either do as he asked or politely decline and hang up. Some shuffling noises later Cas spoke, his voice lower than ever. 

"I've done that." Dean swallowed and his hand moved more firmly against his chest as he imagined Cas in nothing but his boxers. "I'm somewhat chilly now, Dean." Dean rolled his eyes, unable to tell if Cas was fucking with him or not. 

"That's a shame Cas. Do you want to keep your underwear on then?" Dean asked, sarcasm lacing his words. 

"I'm not wearing any." He declared, matter of factly. 

Dean groaned. Cas had been lying there, stark naked. His cock probably laying against his thigh, plumping up as he caught on to what Dean was after. 

"May I ask a favor now Dean?" Dean's mouth dried instantly at Cas' deep growl. 

"Yes Cas?" Dean asked innocently.

"Get naked." 

Dean scrambled to pull his jeans off and discard his t-shirt. He lay spreadeagled on the bed, already breathing hard. Dean had definitely had phone sex before, but then found himself lost for words, simply lying there listening to Cas breathing hundreds of miles away. That was until he heard the tell tale click of a lid being flicked open, and the familiar hiss of a half empty bottle being squeezed. Dean continued his innocent facade, despite being nearly all the way hard, while simultaneously reaching for his duffle. 

"What ya doin there Cas?" Dean said smoothly, flicking open his own bottle of lube. He held it close to the phone and squeezed a generous amount into his palm, relishing the groan of recognition from Cas. Dean lay with a cupped hand full of lube, awaiting instruction that he knew instinctively was coming. Sure enough, Cas took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the air causing a reverberation that Dean could feel through the comforter. 

"I want you to run your hands over your chest, Dean. Can you do that for me?" Cas gravelled out. Dean looked at his hand, then around awkwardly. 

"Um…" Dean floundered for a second before Cas spoke again. 

"You poured out too much lube didn't you?" Cas said and Dean flushed. When Cas spoke next Dean could hear the eye roll in it. "Alright, pour it into the hollow of your chest and leave it there to warm up. I've slicked myself up already, Dean, but you aren't allowed to touch yourself yet. Do you understand?" Dean nodded before remembering Cas couldn't see. Clearing his throat he whispered an affirmative and Cas continued, "I'm dragging my dry hand down my chest, Dean. My nails are leaving marks and I've caught my nipple with my thumb." Cas' breath hitched and Dean clenched his hands in the sheets, barely resisting the urge to touch himself. "I want you to do the same...only the same."

Dean's hands darted to his torso, dragging his blunt nails up and over his pecs, down through the warming pool on his sternum, and across his stomach. He could hear the gentle noises of Cas slowly working his cock, the slick slide clicking over the phone. Dean groaned and ran his palms firmly across his chest, taking full advantage of the permission to touch there. Each pass brought his hands lower until a stray sweep brushed his pinky finger over the very tip of his cock. Dean was worked up enough just by the sounds of Cas growling in his ear that he let out a gasp. Cas paused in his litany. 

"Dean?" Cas whispered sternly and Dean shivered. "What did I tell you?" 

"Please Cas…" Dean knew he was inclined to be somewhat sexually submissive but he'd never had anyone embrace it like Cas had. "Can I..?" He hoped the answer was no, and Cas didn't disappoint. 

"Not yet Dean. You know holding off will make it so much better don't you? I'm waiting too." 

Knowing that Cas was teasing both of them only made the swirling heat in his stomach tighten. Both men settle back into their motions, the sounds of their hands gliding across skin the only thing passing between them for a long moment.

“Good, Dean,” Cas rumbled, “that’s much better. Do you want a little more, Dean?”

“God, yes, please.” Dean breathed out heavily, hoping that Cas really would just give him a little more, and not rush through his.

He didn’t disappoint. “One finger, Dean. Just a gentle stroke.”

Dean let out a shaky sigh as he finally trailed his forefinger down his length, watching it twitch beneath his light touch. “Fuck,” he whispered. “I wish—” He cut himself off.

“Tell me,” Cas asked—no, demanded—roughly.

“I wish it was you. I wish you’d boss me around just like this, Cas, warming me up with your hands and your mouth, stretching me out so I could come on your tongue or your cock alone,” Dean admitted, submitting enough to know that this might be something that worked really well for him. 

Cas _whimpered_ deeply, and fuck, Dean soared on the noise. 

“You’d like that, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean. Very much,” Cas’ voice came rumbling back through the phone, strong and commanding once more. “In fact, why don’t you take yourself in hand right now, and imagine that it’s me. Touch your balls with your other hand, Dean, squeeze them, whatever feels good—tell me what you’re doing.”

Dean reached down, cupping his balls gently and rolling them in his palm, describing every movement to Cas as he made it.

Their breathing escalated, panting in unison, as their words gave way to low whispers and gasped cussing.

“Cas, I’m close, I’m—” Dean hissed out desperately, wanted to come but even more than that, wanting to come when _Cas_ wanted him to.

“Dean,” Cas said huskily, his voice sharp. Dean could almost picture Cas’ stern expresson, imagining him tightening his hand around the base of his own cock, holding back while he focused on Dean.

“Yes—” Dean tried for coherent speech, but it was hard with the warmth creeping up his body.

“Come for me, Dean.”

With a long groan that quickly melted into Castiel’s own, Dean tilted his head back into the pillow, and soaked his stomach.

They lay together long after, laughing softly as they cleaned up. 

They didn’t disconnect, and Dean fell asleep with his phone on his pillow, Cas lightly snoring on the speaker. 

* * *

After the western experience, Cas had emailed along a list of themed motels dotted along Dean's route east. He had only provided the coordinates, which Dean had dutifully marked on his map before he set off for the first one. He figured he would only need to visit two more before he reached home but there were several listed. If any of them seemed too dodgy, he could always skip to the next one. Although, he hummed to himself as he neared Denver, Cas must have a lot of information about travelling and accommodation at his disposal so, unless he was fucking with him, it would probably be fine. 

Cas was definitely fucking with him. 

Dean pulled on to the brightly coloured gravel of the motel's forecourt and stared up at the billboard he had seen from the highway. A huge mouse with familiar black ears, red overalls, and white gloves... but so off-brand it was creepy. He couldn't decide if it had been drawn badly on purpose to avoid copyright infringement or whether the artist had never seen Mickey Mouse before and it was just some great cosmic coincidence. Either way, he dreaded to think what else there was. He found out sooner than expected when he tried to get out of his car and a horribly disheveled bear in a red shirt loomed outside his window. 

"Welcome to Mikey's!" Not a coincidence then. "How can I help?!" The chipper voice coming from within the costume was incessant and he could practically see the broad grin through the dirty netting of its mouth. "We have a special on both the Goofee and Ronald Duck suites! Follow me, I'll get you set up in a jiffy!" 

Dean sat for a couple of seconds just staring at the retreating back of Winifred the Shit or whatever until shaking his head and going after it. 

With his duffle slung over his back and Baby safely tucked away, Dean found himself in a single room, no suite, no theme (except for an artist's impression of some kind of rowdy 'Dizney' orgy on the wall above the bed) and very little in the way of usable amenities, but he checked his phone and the wifi looked strong. He was surprised to find that that was all he really cared about as he shucked his bag, coat, and boots to throw himself on the bed. He was glad he’d taken Cas' advice and took a shorter drive, as his old bones had been starting to struggle. 

Speaking of Cas…a few tuneful bleep bloops later, and Cas' stoic features appeared on his screen. His eyes sparkled though and he wore that little smile that Dean enjoyed.

"Hello, Dean."

"Hey, Cas." Dean had been ready to tear Cas a new one, but one look had him melting like caramel. "I hate you." He may be a total chick when it came to Cas but he wasn't ready to forgive him completely for this mess of a motel. At least it seemed clean. He sniffed experimentally and Cas chuckled.

"Judging by the decor, I assume you are in Denver? I thought you might enjoy the 'whimsy'." Cas smiled. Dean decided right there and then that the best part about video chat was seeing Cas do the dumb airquote thing. 

"Haha, very funny." They grinned at each other for a second, or a minute, before Dean asked what was new. Cas sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping and leaned back in what looked like a pretty cushy desk chair. 

"I have more paperwork than ever to do. I never would have imagined an agency that didn't have to report to anyone would need to file so much. No wonder Charles up and left." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's fine though, I much prefer being here than in the field. Especially this time of year." 

"Aw Cas, don't say that! If you hadn't been shorthanded, you wouldn't have met me!" Dean batted his eyelashes. He hated to think how true the words were, how close they could have come to never meeting at all. For once in his life he thanked the ghost in Sammy's nursery. Cas smiled widely, nodding in agreement.

"That is very true, Dean." 

Dean yawned, sucking in a huge breath and not bothering to cover his mouth. Cas frowned at him, worry maring his lovely face—Jeeze, poetic much?—and Dean blushed.

"I'm sorry, Cas but I gotta hit the hay. I hope to get an early start to make it home tomorrow." He stifled another yawn behind his fist. He opened his eyes to see Cas had suddenly leaned forward. 

"You'll be in Lawrence tomorrow? I thought we agreed that you were going to stop again? What about Norton?" Cas spoke casually but Dean could see he was hiding something. He narrowed his eyes at the small screen. 

"Cas? Why do you want me to stop in Norton? Oh my god, is there an even worse motel than this one?" His eyes widened dramatically. "Is it bacteria themed or something?!" Cas laughed at him and brought his hand to his chest as if to say 'who me?' Dean wasn't buying the innocent act, but ultimately he trusted Cas and so conceded to one more motel stay. 

* * *

Route 36 was a particularly boring road, up until the giant flying saucer. It hung like a mirage and Dean groaned, knowing instinctively that he was probably going to be sleeping under that thing. He drove into the lot surrounding it and looked up at the underside of the horribly peeling UFO. Checking his watch, he was inclined to just keep going. He had only been driving six hours, he could probably handle another four or five, he'd done more in one go before. As if he had a direct link to his internal musing, Cas' ringtone blared accusingly. 

"Hello Dean." Cas sounded sleepy, his words slurring a bit.

"Cas! What the hell? Why this place?" 

"I thought you would enjoy it. There's a room in the saucer but I dare say it's in no better condition than the ship itself. Contrary to appearances the main building houses some rooms that receive excellent reviews. Might I recommend room four in particular?" Cas said, as slyly as he ever managed. Dean hummed. 

"If you say so…" He pulled himself out of his car and performed a remarkable feat of accidental yoga to ease the crick in his back. He was, again, glad to have been convinced to split his journey. He gave his Baby a little love via filling the radiator, topping up the oil, and giving her a quick dust down. 

Dean had to be honest, this was definitely the most impressive reception desk he had seen. It was housed in the front part of the shiny-ish disk and the attendee was seated behind a complicated facsimile of what someone thought an alien spacecraft might look like; somewhere between the Enterprise and the Nostromo. The blonde behind the counter gave him a once over and twirled a finger through her hair. She smacked her gum and Dean winced. Gross. He recovered quickly, smiling the smile that got room upgrades everywhere. Well, mostly everywhere. Sometimes.

"Hey sweetheart, any chance of a room?" He leaned on the counter, dislodging some rubber tubing. 

"That depends, hun. What're you after?" She leaned forward too, low cut shirt getting lower the closer she got. The lock of hair she had been fidgeting with was caught up in her long acrylic nails, getting more tangled by the twirl. 

"I was told by a reliable source to request room four." He winked but she jumped back, straightening sharply. Her demeanor took a u-turn and she frowned. 

"Room four?" 

Less confident now, Dean nodded shakily. 

"Yeah, why?" 

"No reason. It's on the right, here's a key card, swipe it twice, it sticks." She sniffed at him and turned her back. Dean stared at the back of her coiffed head, utterly thrown by her new attitude. 

"Oh kaaay…" He thought he heard her mutter a 'have fun' or something as he turned but decided that anyone working here must be a little bit odd. Dean made his way along the row of rooms, counting down from twelve to four. The door had a little gray man on it, which kinda made it look like an extraterrestrial bathroom, but he slid the card— _three_ times—through the reader and pushed open the door. 

A few things registered at once for Dean. The room already had its lights on, which was usually impossible when he still held the keycard in his hand. There was music playing, bluesy and sweet. If he had thought quicker, he would have turned right around and ducked out thinking he was in the wrong room, but before his mind came back online he peered around the gaudy partition. He should have known, he really, really should have. Cas lay on the large bed, wearing a pair of alien boppers, fast asleep. 

Dean shook his head and took his fill of his devastatingly handsome boyfriend, still in shirtsleeves and slacks, drooling into the pillow. Dean very quietly stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers and grabbed a spare blanket. He stood and watched a bit longer, deliberating whether it would be inappropriate for him to take off Cas' pants or not. Deciding that it was the perfect time for a nap he carefully unbuckled Cas' belt and fly, and slid the whole lot down his legs. His eyes slipped open and he smiled, he held up an arm and Dean gladly snuggled up beside him, pulling the blanket over them both. He breathed in Cas' unfamiliar but comforting scent and drifted off.

Dean was woken by the sun reaching the gap in the blinds, the light spearing through his dry eyelids. He groaned and hugged his pillow tightly. His pillow responded with a grunt. Dean's eyes shot open. Cas! 

"Hello, Dean," Cas intoned gravely, looking down on Dean, and still wearing the ridiculous antennae. Dean hid his laugh in Cas' warm, solid chest.

"Hey, Cas," he mumbled into the rumpled fabric, face hot. Cas stroked Dean's back gently, brushing his fingers down his shoulder blades and back up his arm. Dean felt him lean forward and press a gentle kiss to his crown. "Okay, okay, enough with the petting." Dean grinned up at him. "What're you doing here?" 

"I missed you." Cas said, simply. "I knew you were passing nearby and I couldn't miss the opportunity. I thought you were going to drive through and I was very close to just ruining the surprise. Thankfully, you listened to reason and here we are." Cas leaned forward again, this time catching Dean's brow with his kiss. Dean hummed.

"...and here we aaaarrre." He stretched on the last word, various joints cracking. "It's so warm. I'm really glad you came…I…um…I missed you too." 

Both men grinned like idiots, surrounded by flashing lights and painted aliens. 

"Oh!" Cas jumped up and reached for his holdall. "I brought you something. From the archives…" He pulled a smart leather bound ledger from an inner pocket and presented it to Dean proudly. Dean stared blankly at it.

"What's this? Your diary?" Dean's laugh died on his lips when Cas' face fell into an oddly familiar bitchface. He pushed the book at him. 

"Just look inside, assbutt." 

Dean opened the cover, the spine cracking a little with disuse, to find a photograph of his old house. The one he lived in until his parents got fed up with his 'delusions.' He looked up at Cas sharply, but the man just nodded at the book.

"Keep going." 

Dean moved through the pages, scanning pasted-in newspaper articles about disappearances and strange deaths over the years. The meticulous, handwritten notes detailed the house's history, focusing on the first family to live there in 1910. Dean's stomach swooped when he recognised a boy in an old photograph. A small memo noted: Jacob Taylor, aged six, 1912. He brushed his fingers across the boy's face and Cas squeezed his free hand. 

"This is the official documentation from the haunting at the Richardson's House in Lawrence. Jenny Richardson and her children moved in after you left. Our techs were alerted to strange happenings at the house, specifically in the little girls room."

"Sam's nursery. Jacob's room?" Dean interrupted sadly. 

"Yes. He died the same year that photograph was taken. Influenza." 

Dean turned the page to find another photograph, this one a lot newer and showing a collection of marbles. The image was annotated, lamenting how difficult it is to salt and burn lumps of glass. The marbles were relocated into a curse box to be burnt in the Bunker’s furnace. He closed the journal, running his hand along the cover and handed it back to Cas. Dean tried to swallow past the lump in his throat but his thanks came out as a croak. Cas, however, understood and just squeezed his hand again.

Dean pulled Cas down on to the bed next to him for an awkward sideways hug, their faces ending up inches apart. Cas’ eyes darted around Dean’s face, until they landed on his lips, his tongue darting out nervously. They had only shared one kiss, but they had been much more intimate since then, phone calls, texts, video calls... but nothing could have prepared him for finally being together. No younger brothers smirking nearby, and no horribly impersonal piece of technology between them. Taking a deep breath Dean dove forward at the same time Cas seemingly made the same decision. Their mouths clashed painfully and they both jerked backwards. Dean’s eyes widened and he gently cupped Cas’ cheek.

“God Cas! I’m so sorry, I…Jesus, I swear I’m not normally like this. I just…I really like you, man and I don’t want to fuck up here.” He’d been stroking a thumb across Cas’ cheekbone as he spoke and Cas raised a hand to paw shyly at Dean’s t-shirt. 

“It’s alright, Dean. I’m fine. Shall we…try that again?” Blue eyes met green hopefully and Dean nodded. This time they each kept a guiding hand on the other, slowly moving into a more controlled kiss. Almost immediately Cas licked the seam of Dean’s lips and they gladly opened for him, tongues meeting carefully until Cas pushed forward impatiently. Dean groaned, opening his mouth further, drinking in Cas, trying to get his fill. 

Dean fought to get his sleepy fingers to work on Cas' shirt, only managing the top button before Cas wrenched it up over his head, catching his nose awkwardly before diving back in, the sleeves of his shirt pinning his arms behind his back. He huffed, and yanked at them when Dean broke away to remove his own t-shirt. 

Finally, with bare chests pressed together, Cas pulled Dean down by his shoulders, straddling him with an impressive twisting maneuver at the last second. Dean could feel the hard length of Cas' cock against his thigh and he grabbed him by the hips to line them up better, grinding up as they slotted together. 

Cas let out a delicious moan, panting into Dean's mouth before pressing his forehead to Dean's temple and riding him hard through his boxers. 

"Fuck, Cas." Dean groaned. "You have to slow down if you want this to last." 

Cas immediately slowed to a gentle roll, breathing deeply through his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. Dean waited, his hands clenched on Cas' hips, doing his own breathing exercises and watching Cas get a hold of himself. He looked gorgeous; hair a disaster, flushed cheeks and his bottom lip tight between his teeth. Cas opened his eyes to meet Dean's, then he swung a leg over to get up. Dean pouted and made to follow but Cas pushed him back on the bed. 

"I want you to watch this, and don't even think about touching yourself." Cas practically growled and Dean gasped, swelling impossibly harder at the instruction. 

He nodded and gripped the comforter with both hands at his sides. Cas retrieved a small bottle of lube from his bag and came back to the bed, dribbling some on his outstretched fingers. He got on all fours, and Dean simply stared as Cas brought the hand around and ran his wet middle finger around his hole, slipping the tip in just slightly. Both men groaned, and Dean grabbed the comforter, clenching his fists in time with two of Cas' fingers disappearing into his drenched hole. Cas looked over his shoulder, pinning Dean with his intense stare and daring him to reach out and touch. Dean obliged eagerly and Cas huffed when Dean grabbed him by the hips to pull him into his lap, attacking his neck with nips and kisses. Cas rolled his hips, slicking up Dean's cock as it slid between his ass cheeks. 

"Fuck, Cas." Dean breathed into his neck, mouthing lazily as Cas rocked in his lap. Wrapping both arms around Cas, Dean pulled them both back on to the bed, aiming for the headboard, but Cas turned in his grip and gracefully straddled Dean as he reclined. "Jesus Cas, you're fucking agile. Ride me? Please? Fuck." Dean ran out of breath as he begged. His pleading ended with a grunt as Cas lined him up and slid down his cock, his ass meeting Dean's hips with a slap. 

Dean held Cas still with a firm grip on his thighs and gritted his teeth. He tried to think of anything to stop his impending orgasm, the previous week flashing before his eyes; bigfoot, dodgy cartoon characters, bigfoot, Cas staring down the suspect, Cas eating cereal in his boxers, the cowboy motel and the phone call there...dammit, that wasn't helping! He breathed deeply and thought of Sam, no doubt pulling a face if Cas' questioning head tilt was anything to go by. Thoughts of his baby brother did the trick and he let out the air he had been holding, nodding at Cas while canting his hips up. Dean planted his feet and Cas got the idea, rising up onto his knees then, with Dean's hands on his hips keeping him slow, undulated down again. 

Once seated Cas ran his hands from Dean's shoulders to his wrists before grabbing them and forcing his arms above his head, just the right side of rough. Cas pinned him there and with a grin and a quick kiss to Dean's lips he started to swing his hips in tight circles as he ground down, occasionally pushing forward forcefully. With each grind and push Dean's breath was forced out of him and he panted helplessly as Cas kept up his pace. With his hands still pinned above his head Dean arched up, digging his feet further into the mattress. Rocking on his heels, Dean drove his hips up, keeping time with Cas bouncing wildly above him. 

Judging by Cas' furrowed brow and bitten lip, he was close and his hands tightened around Dean's wrists as he stiffened. Dean watched in awe as Cas came hard across his chest, some even reaching Dean's chin. Cas clenching around him pushed Dean over the edge just seconds later. Cas slowed his hips to a smooth, slow roll, letting go of Dean's arms to fist himself gently, riding out both their climaxes. 

Silent but for their heavy breathing, Cas rolled sideways, pulling off Dean to lay at his side. Their eyes met and they each grinned goofily. 

"Hello, Dean." 

Dean snorted, pulling a sleepy Cas to him despite the mess, and kissed his sweaty hair. 

"Hey, Cas." 

**Dean gets Home**

Although Dean found it hard to leave Cas with just a kiss and a promise, when his mom and dad's little house came into view, he had never been happier to see somewhere in his life. He hadn't been home since Sam's break had started three months ago and he was surprised that the roar of the Impala hadn't summoned his mother to the driveway. As he got closer he noticed a classic black motorcycle there instead of his dad's Sierra Grande. Huh. Pulling in behind the gorgeous bike version of Baby, Dean warily approached the old porch. 

"Hello? Mom?" Dean called through the screen door. "Anybody home?" 

The door was unlocked like always so he headed for the kitchen. His mom wasn't much of a cook, but she tended to stick to the hub of the attached dining area when she wrote. Dean heard a man laugh long before he saw the stranger at his mother's side. He was doubled over laughing and his mom looked very pleased with herself. Her face lit up further when she spotted her son at the door and she rushed forward for a hug, stalling for a second to put her coffee down. 

"Dean! You didn't call! Arthur is here to see you, what a coincidence!?" Mary looked between the two men, Dean frowning and 'Arthur' smirking.

"What a coincidence indeed." Ketch drawled in a particularly smarmy British accent. The man stood and offered his hand, Dean looked at it suspiciously for a moment before shaking it firmly. "Arthur Ketch. Pleasure to meet you, Dean." 

Understanding dawned.

"Agent K?" He glanced at his mom, then back at Ketch and whispered "from M.O.L? Is Cas okay?!" 

Ketch raised a hand.

"Ah yes, I was made aware, ad nauseum, of your propensity for referential whimsy. I am indeed 'Agent K' and <i>Mr. Novak</i> is perfectly alright." 

Dean let out a breath he hadn't realised he had sucked in and held. He stapled on his swagger to hide the lingering wrench in his chest. 

"Nice bike," Dean deflected.

"Thank you. She was a gift. Now, may we discuss why I am here?" He turned to Mary with a simpering smile. "I'm sorry my dear, may I speak with your son privately?" 

Dean was horrified to see his mom giggle before she left them alone in the kitchen with a coy wave. Ketch's charm dropped immediately upon turning back to Dean. "I am here to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity. It has come to my attention that you possess a certain skill set that could be a valuable contribution to our agency." 

Ketch waited. Dean stared. 

"Huh?" 

"We're offering you a job, Dean." Ketch explained, with a condescending smile that Dean rolled his eyes at. 

"Yeah, I get that but what skills? Did Cas put you up to this? I don't need a pity job or anything." He felt a spike of anger at Cas for indulging in nepotism in order to throw Dean a bone. 

"Of course not. The Men of Letters are not in the habit of hiring any Tom, Dick or Harry that gets into the Director’s pants," Ketch said smoothly. He was saved by the bell, or in this case, saved from Dean's fist, by the tell tale rumble of his dad's truck pulling up. Ketch smirked. "Down boy. Despite it being none of my business, I can tell you it's not a common occurrence."

Dean didn't sit, but waited for Ketch to continue. 

"Mr Novak submitted a report just like anyone else. Provided video evidence of the case you assisted him with and recorded the various gadgets you had developed. You caught the eye of a certain team within the organisation and they want you. You wouldn't be working for 'Cas'." —The quotation marks dropped into place with disdain—"You would of course start as a trainee, making use of our shooting range and attending lectures while also developing your toys. How does that sound?" Ketch finished with a flourish of his hand. 

Dean's knees buckled and he sat abruptly. 

Ketch chuckled. "Speechless? That doesn't seem like it happens very often. You have twenty-four hours to think it over then you can take the job or we'll use the flashy thingy on you." Ketch had a twinkle in his eye and Dean was just cognizant enough to get the reference being thrown back at him, but he just gave a weak smile and absently took the card that was being held out to him. 

"Sure. Thanks. I'll call you." 

Less than two minutes later Ketch was on his way—leaving pretty sharpish once he had met John Winchester—and Dean was on the phone to Sam. 

"Hey bitch. Uh, so I got a job." Dean winced into the phone, expecting the smug response.

"That's great! Where? Bobby's?" Sam yipped at him and Dean frowned. He knew that he didn't have many traditional prospects but the assumption irked him a bit. Despite his irritation he took the opportunity to fuck with his brother a bit. 

"Um, no, well, I thought long and hard on the drive and realised I didn't want to live out of the car anymore. The next place I stopped, I got a job. It's got benefits, I'll meet lots of people, costume is provided and I get a discount, so that's cool." 

"That's really great Dean…wait…costume? What?" 

Dean smirked and decided to press on. 

"Oh, you know, the tear away stuff isn't cheap and I'll need the really big panties and heels, obviously, and Sammy? Body glitter doesn't grow on trees, y'know?" Dean squeezed his eyes shut and jammed his fist into his mouth to stifle his laughter in the ensuing silence. Minutes passed until Dean felt the need to check if they were still connected. "Sammy? Aren't you happy for me? I'm settling down like you wanted." 

"I'm here. I'm very happy for you. Congratulations. I have to...uh...go...wash my hair. Say hi to mom and dad." The call ended and Dean burst out laughing. He'd be giggling about that for ages. Next up, Cas. Dean wanted to make certain that it wouldn't be weird for them to work together before he accepted the job. 

It barely rang before Cas answered. 

"Hello, Dean." Cas sounded so fond that Dean realised he shouldn't have been worried. "Are you home?"

"Hey, Cas. Yeah, just got in. Can I ask you something?" Cas hummed his assent. "Has Ketch always been such a douchebag?" 

"Oh! He's already been there? Yes, ever since I've known him anyway." Cas chuckled. 

"You knew he was coming? Why didn't you tell me?" Dean asked. "He, uh, offered me a place at MoL."

"I know Dean, he asked me first if I was alright with you joining us. Of course I agreed. You're very talented. I admit, I was going to pitch some of your ideas on your behalf but Ketch and Charlie came to me before I had the opportunity. They wanted to know if you would be a good fit. I assured them you would be. Especially as you would be working with Charlie. She is...abstract. I adore her, everyone does, so I hope you will too. I mean... if you accept?" Cas fell silent. 

Dean hadn't been sure until Cas had confirmed that a) he hadn't pulled strings for him and 2) he thought that Dean would like it there. He realised he had been quiet too long, and blurted out affirmation. 

"Yes Cas, I will. It sounds like a great opportunity and I've heard there are some hotties that work there so, y'know, I won't get lonely." Dean smirked, hoping Cas picked up on his teasing.

"Ah, I'm sorry Dean but interpersonal fraternation is prohibited." 

Dean's stomach twisted painfully. He must have made some noise of distress because Cas laughed. 

"Gotcha." 

He couldn't believe it. Cas had made a joke. He let out a huff. 

"Cas, you assbutt." 

Dean said his goodbyes with a smile and dialed the number on the card. 

**SIX MONTHS LATER**

Cas tried desperately not to touch him, he really, really did, but the man was a natural! Dean exuded power at the range and Cas admired his confident stance and how his shoulders bore the recoil of the .9mm he was currently practicing with. Cas' hand hovered, waiting for the right moment so as not to startle the man with a loaded weapon and at a pause he made contact. Dean jumped and span around, gun down, trigger finger straight. 

"Jesus, Cas." Dean placed the colt aside and dragged Cas into his arms. "Hey, whats up?" 

Cas melted against him and hummed. 

"Just wanted to enjoy the view down here." Cas looked around furtively and seeing the place empty pulled Dean into a proper kiss. They ended up propped against the far wall, having stumbled there entwined. 

"Cas!" Dean panted when they broke the kiss. "What was that for?" 

Cas shrugged. 

"It's the last day of your probation and you passed with flying colours. Your training will continue but you are now officially a Man of Letters." Cas watched Dean's face shift from arousal to joy then swiftly back to arousal again. Dean pulled him into another scorching kiss but Cas pulled away just enough to continue. "And, the British Men of Letters were _very_ impressed with your curse bag. They've begun production to provide one for every agent in the network. Your original prototype—which I still can't believe you _made on the road_ —will be on display in the archives as a piece of MoL history. I'm very proud of you, Dean"

Dean avoided his loving gaze shyly and deflected the compliment as usual. 

"Thanks, Cas. For everything." Dean finally smiled down at him, lips swollen, cheeks flushed and hair a disaster to rival Cas' own. "How about you and I take ourselves somewhere a little more private?" 

In lieu of answering, Cas grabbed Dean's hand and dragged him from the room. At first he had been self conscious about a relationship within the bunker, but Dean was shameless which helped open him up. If Ketch and Toni can unabashedly screw around in the library, then surely he and Dean can have a little fun in his room. 

He would, however, never get used to the catcalls as they raced one another through the halls.


End file.
